


The Loony from Outer Space

by lunadesangre



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Takin' Over the Asylum, Torchwood
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunadesangre/pseuds/lunadesangre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Campbell Bain is really the Doctor, though he doesn't know, and Jack hasn't rebuilt Torchwood yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loony from Outer Space

**Author's Note:**

> What? Someone had to write it.

Somehow, Jack finds him in Scotland, in an insane asylum of all places, without actually looking for him for once: he’s there on a good old monster/alien sighting. The Doctor’s human identity is solid: Campbell Bain, 19, with parents, and a whole school and medical history. If there’s a flaw somewhere in his life records, Jack can’t find it: Campbell Bain exists – has always existed. By all accounts he shouldn’t be the Doctor – he can’t possibly be. And yet he is. Jack can _feel_ it. He only has one heart and his DNA is human, but _he’s the Doctor_.

Jack talks to him, posing as a doctor (and that is fucking hilarious, he thinks): he obviously doesn’t remember, but the personality is the same, just overblown, without all that darkness weighting him down. Manic, the reason for the asylum – which completely makes sense for the Doctor. Too young for some reason, but definitely the same face as his tenth incarnation, the one’s Jack only seen through computers screens so far, always too late to catch him. And having strange dreams – strange nightmares. Nightmares that match the Doctor’s life: robot-killers and _exterminate_ and people changing faces and bodies and _Time_ and a flying blue box singing him lullabies in his mind. War. A blond girl he wanted to protect, gone now, far beyond his reach.

 _And Jack_.

Campbell tells him, right from the start: “You were in my dreams last night.” And Jack forgets to breathe for a second or two. “I think I like you”, Campbell tells him, like he doesn’t need to breathe between sentences: “No I know I like you, I like you,” and “You want to kiss me – Oh you want more than a kiss, you kissed me before, you want me, are you going to kiss me again? You should kiss me again.”

God – the universe, someone, _something_ – help him, right then it’s all Jack wants. But he has more self-control than that – and more respect for the Doctor than for anyone – or anything – he’s ever encountered. He doesn’t.

He talks to Campbell’s parents, to the doctors, his teachers, the other patients, the kids from his old schools, everyone and anyone who’s ever known him, trying to find a flaw, trying to understand. He finds nothing. He roams all over the country trying to find the TARDIS, to no avail. Out of desperation, he takes illegal DNA samples from the unhappy parents when they’re asleep, calls in a few favours without giving anything away, and personally oversees the analysing in Torchwood One, hovering over the shoulder of a young and easily cowed scientist whose name he’s not interested in remembering. They don’t match Campbell’s – it’s at least one thing that make sense if Campbell is the Doctor, and Jack is sure that he is.

He goes back to the asylum just in time to save him from the alien Jack was after in the first place, and Campbell is more shocked that Jack killed the thing _just like that_ than by the fact that he was almost mauled by _an alien_. “You’d be dead if I hadn’t,” Jack points out, feeling like he’s talking to the Doctor indeed as he hauls the kid to his feet in the darkened corridor. Campbell gapes at him, shuts up, and just looks at the dead body sadly. He doesn’t let go of Jack’s hand.

Jack looks at him sideways as he guides him out in the night, away from the chaos that the asylum exploded into. He’s going to call Torchwood to clean up the mess, and – he’s not sure what to do next, but there’s no way he’s letting Campbell out of his sight: Jack has just found him again, there’s no way he’s going to let go of the Doctor any time soon. Even if the Doctor is currently a clueless, manic human kid – or more accurately, _especially_ because of that. Jack doesn’t know the how or why, but until he figures it out and gets the Doctor back to normal, he’s going to make sure he's safe, whatever that takes. It’s the only thing that matters.


End file.
